Normally, it's recommended to find a place to tuck those folks away in irrelevant, powerless positions where they can't do any harm: like, for example, the BOSTON CITY COUNCIL.

The danger there, of course, is that, occasionally the City Council can find itself with an actual decision of consequence to make — like, say, whether to approve funding of the arbitrated firefighters contract.

This is a tough one for many of the councilors. On the one hand, they can't stand up to the pressure of municipal unions, who help get them elected. On the other, they can't stand up to the pressure of the media and public, who are pummeling them.

It's tough to decide on the correct spineless thing to do.

There is no lack of spine on the part of Mayor TOM MENINO and union leader EDDIE KELLY. They have made crystal clear that, when it comes to the central issue of ensuring that firefighters are clean and sober, the most important thing is who wins and loses in their own personal grudge match.

Kelly has admitted in interviews that, yeah, maybe it's not really fair to get a big raise just for submitting to testing — but he demanded it anyway. And in an arbitration brief, Menino suggested adopting the widely ridiculed drug testing used by Boston's police (in which the testee knows when the tests are coming each year, and can plan their highs accordingly), if that method would come without a union quid pro quo raise.

Public safety: it's all about the Benjamins, baby.

Splitting the voteBut how can I leave off the fine folks who want to run our great Commonwealth beginning next year? I'm talking, of course, about the two challengers for governor, Republican CHARLIE BAKER and independent TIM CAHILL — a duo trying to prove themselves worse as candidates than the front-runners of 2006: Tom Reilly and Kerry Healey.

That year, Reilly and Healey managed to get creamed when nobody even knew who DEVAL PATRICK was. This year, Baker and Cahill are getting creamed when everybody knows Patrick — and doesn't like him.

Baker and Cahill seem amazingly eager to cave in to conservatives. Cahill made the Fox News rounds a while back, declaring he had suddenly discovered that Massachusetts's health-care reform, which he had never previously criticized, was literally bankrupting the state. This past week, he declared that Patrick is soft on Muslims and terror. Perhaps next he'll be demanding Deval's birth certificate?

Cahill, by the way, also finds himself in the middle of the Probation Department fiasco, and people have been surprised at how casually he has reacted to the reports of patronage.

People need to remember that Cahill comes out of the political breeding ground of Norfolk County. As I understand it, if you want a government job down there, you don't fill out an application — you submit a link to your page on geneology.com.

Baker, of course, had to face Republican delegates at the GOP convention a few weeks ago. Those delegates, surveying the array of problems facing the Commonwealth, demanded one overarching pledge from Baker: stick it to the boys who dress like girls, and vice versa.

State of flux A few weeks ago, the state legislature headed into its winter break with what might be called a flurry of inactivity.

The Curse of the Big Dig Call it the Curse of the Big Dig: virtually every politician with statewide significance who has over the years become intertwined with the Central Artery Project (as it is officially known) has seen his or her dreams of higher office dashed.

Saving America from itself The nation’s inability to regulate the corporate class is bringing death, destruction, and economic ruin.

Burn, baby, burn The Phoenix opposed President Barack Obama's efforts to help Chicago win the 2016 Summer Olympics on the grounds that doing business with the International Olympic Committee is always bad news for the host community.

Is it Tim time? Whereas a few months ago it seemed that no one could pose a serious threat to any re-election campaign mounted by Governor Deval Patrick, a recent string of missteps has suddenly made him very vulnerable.

Time to wake up The news that Massachusetts's finances are in even worse shape than previously thought was not exactly a surprise.

Mickey Mouse Multiculturalism Massachusetts treasurer and independent candidate for governor Tim Cahill was off base when he accused incumbent governor Deval Patrick of "playing politics with terrorism" in the wake of Patrick's visit to the controversial Roxbury mosque maintained by the Islamic Society of Boston.

Deval Patrick and the mosque I was extremely disappointed to read your close-minded, ignorant, and bigoted position on Governor Deval Patrick’s meeting with Muslims at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center in Roxbury.

Patrick's paradox Governor Deval Patrick may be the incumbent, but he enters the race for the most thankless statewide job in Massachusetts as an underdog.

Brown Bagging If you are finding it hard to get enthused about the seemingly preordained drubbing that Democratic Attorney General Martha Coakley will give to the GOP nominee, State Senator Scott Brown, in the special election for US Senate, you are not alone.

MRS. WARREN GOES TO WASHINGTON | March 21, 2013 Elizabeth Warren was the only senator on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, aside from the chair and ranking minority, to show up at last Thursday's hearing on indexing the minimum wage to inflation.

MARCH MADNESS | March 12, 2013 It's no surprise that the coming weekend's Saint Patrick's Day celebrations have become politically charged, given the extraordinary convergence of electoral events visiting South Boston.

LABOR'S LOVE LOST | March 08, 2013 Steve Lynch is winning back much of the union support that left him in 2009.

AFTER MARKEY, GET SET, GO | February 20, 2013 It's a matter of political decorum: when an officeholder is running for higher office, you wait until the election has been won before publicly coveting the resulting vacancy.